Dur­ing the inter­val of last night’s per­for­mance of Ben­jamin Brit­ten’s The Turn of the Screw, I popped out­side for a bit of cold air and sec­ond-hand smoke.  As I stood read­ing the play­bills, a group of four peo­ple bus­tled out, one of whom was loud­ly and petu­lant­ly pro­claim­ing “But I want PUCCINI!!!”  They did not return to the the­atre for the sec­ond half, and I was­n’t sur­prised.  Brit­ten seems as far from Puc­ci­ni as you can get.

Full dis­clo­sure — I love Puc­ci­ni.  I love Ver­di and Rossi­ni and Delibes and Bizet and Mozart.  I love the kind of opera that non-opera fans recog­nise from movies like Pret­ty Woman and Moon­struck.  (I’m Nicholas Cage, obvi­ous­ly.)  I love soar­ing arias and bosomy hero­ines and swelling cho­rus­es and rich cos­tume and just lush extrav­a­gant music, with beau­ti­ful voic­es weav­ing in beau­ti­ful HARMONIC coun­ter­point.  I also loved last night’s pro­duc­tion, whole­heart­ed­ly.

The Turn of the Screw is stripped back, with only six singers and a cham­ber orches­tra.  The set is mono­chro­mat­ic and mal­leable, with drop­sheets obscur­ing and then reveal­ing new parts of the set.  Fram­ing it are a series of Expres­sion­ist trape­zoids.  These form a cor­ri­dor, but that cor­ri­dor could be one of many in a grand but most­ly emp­ty house, or a path­way between this life and the next, depend­ing on the moment.  It all cre­ates an effect both dream­like and harsh, per­fect­ly suit­ed to the music and themes.  A clever and cre­ative light­ing design plays off it all, and turns a cur­tain into a win­dow through which a Gov­erness begins to see omi­nous fig­ures influ­enc­ing the chil­dren she is employed to pro­tect.

Musi­cal­ly, Brit­ten cre­ates a deeply unset­tling envi­ron­ment with dis­so­nant music and vocal lines, describ­ing the emo­tion­al atmos­phere rather than any­thing as pro­sa­ic as dia­logue or sto­ry.  A twelve-tone theme runs through­out, bind­ing it all togeth­er — I did­n’t realise it was there until lat­er, when it was qui­et­ly whis­per­ing in my head.  The orches­tra, tucked away at the side of the stage and sen­si­tive­ly direct­ed by Hol­ly Math­ieson, at times seems to be far  more than just 13 play­ers, and then drops away to just a harp, or a piano, a sug­ges­tion of accom­pa­ni­ment.

Anna Leese’s voice is mag­nif­i­cent, and her deliv­ery pow­er­ful­ly mov­ing, as her Gov­erness moves from ner­vous­ness about a new posi­tion, to devel­op­ing devo­tion to her charges, and then the real­i­sa­tion that some­thing ter­ri­ble has hap­pened in the house and dark forces con­tin­ue to hold sway.  She believ­ably nav­i­gates an emo­tion­al jour­ney that could seem illog­i­cal, and in the last moments, her hor­ror and grief was heart-break­ing.

Jared Holt and Madeleine Pier­ard are bril­liant­ly cast, both with the kind of rich and throb­bing voic­es per­fect for the spec­tres they play and strong phys­i­cal­i­ty.  But the chil­dren…

Alexa Har­wood and Alexan­dros Swal­low are sim­ply extra­or­di­nary.  I gen­uine­ly can­not com­pre­hend how per­form­ers of their age could play such moral­ly com­plex parts that authen­ti­cal­ly, and their voic­es are tru­ly excel­lent.  Add the chal­lenge of singing parts often in dischord with the accom­pa­ny­ing music and oth­er singers…  Just mind-bog­gling.

I’ve tried my best to avoid spoil­ers, because I tru­ly think any­one who CAN get to the sec­ond and last per­for­mance (Sat­ur­day 5th, at the Opera House) of this lim­it­ed sea­son, SHOULD.  Brit­ten can be alien­at­ing, if you pre­fer a sweet­er, more roman­tic style of opera, and the sto­ry is dis­tress­ing, with its themes of cor­rup­tion of inno­cence and help­less­ness.  But if you allow your­self to be tak­en on that jour­ney, you will invest in it, you will feel things, and that’s what good opera should do.